How Much Does It Cost to Run an Incandescent Light Bulb?
Short answer: about $0.052 a day and $1.56 a month, or $0.010 for each hour it runs at full power, at the 2025 US average electricity rate. That is for a 60 W incandescent light bulb running 5 hours a day with a 100% duty cycle. Change the state and hours below for your own number.
Updated Nov 8, 2026
Quick answer
Quick answer, US average (17.3 c/kWh)
About $1.56 a month
The same use costs $1.06 a month in North Dakota and $3.65 in Hawaii.
- Per hour
- $0.010
- at 60 W
- Per day
- $0.052
- 5 h, 0.30 kWh
- Per month
- $1.56
- 30 days
- Per year
- $18.94
- 365 days at the same use
Your state, your hours
Per hour
$0.010
Per day
$0.052
Per month
$1.56
Per year
$18.94
Incandescent Light Bulb at 60 W, 5 h a day, 30 days a month, 100% duty cycle: 9.0 kWh a month. Using the 2025 US average of 17.3 cents/kWh.
Want to change the watts or duty cycle too? Open the full calculator.
What decides the cost of running an incandescent light bulb
An incandescent bulb makes light by heating a tungsten filament until it glows, and roughly 90 percent of the electricity becomes heat rather than light. That is why a 60 W incandescent and a 9 W LED give about the same 800 lumens. At the 60 W default for 5 hours a day, an incandescent uses 0.3 kWh a day, about 5 cents, or $18.94 a year at the national average rate. A 100 W bulb on the same schedule is about $31.57 a year, and a 40 W bulb about $12.63.
Most general-purpose incandescent bulbs are no longer sold in the US. A federal efficiency standard of 45 lumens per watt, enforced from August 2023, rules out standard incandescent and halogen bulbs for ordinary sockets. Appliance bulbs, some decorative shapes and a few other specialty types are exempt, so incandescents still turn up in ovens, refrigerators and older fixtures, and plenty of homes still have them in lamps nobody has gotten around to changing.
Those leftover bulbs are worth replacing in the fixtures you use most. Swapping one 60 W incandescent for a 9 W LED saves 51 W, about 93 kWh and $16 a year at 5 hours a day, and an LED bulb pays for itself within the first year. A porch light or security light left on all night is the best target, since a 60 W bulb running 12 hours a day costs about $45 a year.
The heat is not entirely wasted in winter, since it warms the room a little, but it is an expensive way to heat compared with a furnace or heat pump. In summer it works against you twice: you pay for the bulb and again for the air conditioner to remove its heat.
How to cut it
- Replace incandescents first in porch lights, kitchen fixtures and lamps that run for hours every day.
- Match lumens when replacing: 800 lumens for a 60 W bulb, 1,600 lumens for a 100 W bulb.
- Use a dimmable LED in dimmer circuits to avoid flicker.
- Keep incandescents only where a specialty bulb is required, such as inside an oven.
Incandescent Light Bulb cost by state
Monthly cost for 60 W, 5 h a day, 100% duty cycle, 30 days, sorted cheapest to most expensive. Pick your state above to highlight it.
| Rank | State | Cents/kWh | Per month |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | North Dakota | 11.81 | $1.06 |
| 2 | Idaho | 11.82 | $1.06 |
| 3 | Nebraska | 12.34 | $1.11 |
| 4 | Louisiana | 12.57 | $1.13 |
| 5 | Arkansas | 12.84 | $1.16 |
| 6 | Montana | 12.98 | $1.17 |
| 7 | Utah | 13.07 | $1.18 |
| 8 | Washington | 13.11 | $1.18 |
| 9 | Oklahoma | 13.12 | $1.18 |
| 10 | Nevada | 13.15 | $1.18 |
| 11 | Tennessee | 13.18 | $1.19 |
| 12 | Kentucky | 13.24 | $1.19 |
| 13 | South Dakota | 13.38 | $1.20 |
| 14 | Wyoming | 13.38 | $1.20 |
| 15 | Missouri | 13.49 | $1.21 |
| 16 | Iowa | 13.72 | $1.23 |
| 17 | North Carolina | 14.02 | $1.26 |
| 18 | Mississippi | 14.03 | $1.26 |
| 19 | Kansas | 14.56 | $1.31 |
| 20 | Georgia | 14.73 | $1.33 |
| 21 | South Carolina | 14.96 | $1.35 |
| 22 | New Mexico | 15.08 | $1.36 |
| 23 | Florida | 15.24 | $1.37 |
| 24 | Virginia | 15.28 | $1.38 |
| 25 | Arizona | 15.32 | $1.38 |
| 26 | Oregon | 15.37 | $1.38 |
| 27 | West Virginia | 15.41 | $1.39 |
| 28 | Texas | 15.47 | $1.39 |
| 29 | Minnesota | 15.82 | $1.42 |
| 30 | Colorado | 15.85 | $1.43 |
| 31 | Alabama | 16.10 | $1.45 |
| 32 | Indiana | 16.23 | $1.46 |
| 33 | Ohio | 16.96 | $1.53 |
| 34 | Delaware | 17.13 | $1.54 |
| 35 | Illinois | 17.69 | $1.59 |
| 36 | Wisconsin | 18.16 | $1.63 |
| 37 | Pennsylvania | 19.30 | $1.74 |
| 38 | Maryland | 19.48 | $1.75 |
| 39 | Michigan | 20.01 | $1.80 |
| 40 | District of Columbia | 21.94 | $1.97 |
| 41 | New Jersey | 22.63 | $2.04 |
| 42 | Vermont | 22.92 | $2.06 |
| 43 | New Hampshire | 24.56 | $2.21 |
| 44 | Alaska | 26.09 | $2.35 |
| 45 | New York | 26.39 | $2.38 |
| 46 | Maine | 27.78 | $2.50 |
| 47 | Connecticut | 29.38 | $2.64 |
| 48 | Rhode Island | 29.46 | $2.65 |
| 49 | Massachusetts | 30.48 | $2.74 |
| 50 | California | 32.54 | $2.93 |
| 51 | Hawaii | 40.59 | $3.65 |
Rates: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Form EIA-861, annual average residential price, 2025 (eia.gov). Full list on the electricity rates by state page.
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Frequently asked questions
How much does it cost to run a 60 W light bulb per hour?+
About 1 cent an hour. A 60 W bulb uses 0.06 kWh an hour, and 0.06 x $0.173 is $0.0104 at the national average rate. A 100 W bulb costs about 1.7 cents an hour.
How much does it cost to run an incandescent bulb per month?+
About $1.56 a month at 5 hours a day. 60 W x 5 hours is 0.3 kWh a day, or 9 kWh over 30 days, and 9 x $0.173 is about $1.56.
How much does it cost to run a light bulb per year?+
About $18.94 a year for a 60 W incandescent at 5 hours a day (109.5 kWh at 17.3 cents), and about $2.84 for the 9 W LED that replaces it. A 100 W incandescent on the same schedule costs about $31.57.
How much does it cost to leave a light on all night?+
About 8 cents for a 60 W incandescent over 8 hours. 0.06 kW x 8 hours = 0.48 kWh, and 0.48 x $0.173 is $0.083. The same night with a 9 W LED costs about 1.2 cents.
How much does it cost to leave a light on 24 hours a day?+
About 25 cents a day for a 60 W incandescent, or about $91 a year. 60 W x 24 hours is 1.44 kWh a day and 525.6 kWh a year at 17.3 cents per kWh.
How many watts does an incandescent bulb use?+
Exactly what is printed on it: commonly 40, 60, 75 or 100 W. Halogen bulbs sold as replacements used a little less, such as 43 W for a 60 W equivalent. The LED equivalents use about 5 to 16 W for the same light.
Does an incandescent bulb use a lot of electricity?+
Compared with an LED, yes: about 6.7 times as much for the same light. One 60 W bulb at 5 hours a day uses about 110 kWh a year. Across a whole house of incandescents, lighting can cost several hundred dollars a year.
Are incandescent light bulbs banned?+
Most general-purpose ones are no longer sold. Since August 2023 federal rules require general service bulbs to produce at least 45 lumens per watt, which standard incandescent and halogen bulbs cannot meet. Specialty types such as appliance bulbs are exempt, and existing bulbs can still be used.
LED vs incandescent: how much cheaper is LED to run?+
About 85 percent cheaper. A 9 W LED uses 51 W less than a 60 W incandescent, which saves about 93 kWh and $16 a year per bulb at 5 hours a day, and it lasts 15 to 25 times longer.
Do incandescent bulbs give off a lot of heat?+
Yes. About 90 percent of the energy becomes heat, so a 60 W bulb is close to a 54 W heater. In summer the air conditioner has to remove that heat as well, which adds to the real cost of keeping incandescents.
Marcus Reed
Founder and Editor, CrunchYourDollars
Marcus Reed builds the sizing tools on CrunchYourDollars. He is a software engineer with a long-running PC hardware and power supply habit, which is where the watts, watt-hours and surge math on this site comes from. Product specs are pulled from manufacturer data sheets, electricity rates from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, and water chemistry rules from the Water Quality Association. He is not a licensed electrician or plumber: the tools show the math and the matching models so you can make the call, and anything involving your electrical panel should be checked by a licensed pro.
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